


Silk and Ebony

by LectorEl



Series: Glass Heart [3]
Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-06
Updated: 2012-02-06
Packaged: 2017-11-23 05:44:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/618748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LectorEl/pseuds/LectorEl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Yours doesn’t beat either,” Damian says in tones of wonder.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Silk and Ebony

Damian presses his palm against Tim’s chest, right above the shatterglass orb of his artificial heart.

“Yours doesn’t beat either,” Damian says in tones of wonder. The fight is forgotten. The bloody wounds they’d just inflicted on each other forgotten.

Tim reaches out, tentatively pressing his fingers to the pulse point on Damian’s neck. The younger boy lets him. Under his fingers, Tim can feel the steady vibration of a constant flow.

“No,” Tim agrees, eyes wide, “It doesn’t. Like yours.” He looks up at Damian from his position on the floor, relaxing into Damian’s hold.

“How?” Damian asks, almost plaintively. His hand stays over Tim’s heart. “Why?”

“How it always happens,” Tim tells him, curling his fingers around Damian’s wrist. Just holding, not trying to remove his hand. “I loved somebody, and they didn’t love me.”

“That’s not _fair_.” Damian shakes his head in denial, petting the skin above his Tim’s wounded heart.

Tim laughs, sad and sweet and just a little bitter. “When is it ever? I lost mine and you lost yours, and nobody ever understands what that means.”

“Steel,” Damian say, “Steel and ebony wood from a persimmon tree. That’s what mother made my heart from.”

“They made mine out of glass and copper wire,” Tim tells him shyly. They smile at each other, with the wounded, crooked smiles of children who have never been quite what they should.

***

There’s a sound like a dropped glass shattering, and Damian finds himself chilled to the bone.

“Tim!” He launches himself across the rooftops, racing after the terrifying sound, ignoring Father, forgetting everything but that awful noise.

Tim lays sprawled on the alley floor, limps disarrayed, like the abandoned doll of some careless child. There’s a bloody hole carved in his left side, and the Joker is laughing, shattered remnants Tim’s heart of glass in his cupped hands. The Joker laughs and laughs, the black hole where his heart should be gaping open like a hungry mouth.

“Die,” Damian hisses, ebony and steel heart howling that its counterpart be avenged. The first shuriken strikes home in that black mouth, the second barely missing the Joker’s head.

Tim makes a low sound, pained and despairing. Damian freezes, torn between finishing the Joker and going to his aid. He makes his choice.

***

Tim has half a heart, made of ebony and steel. It binds him close to Damian’s side, loathe to stray too far from it’s other half. When others ask why they’re so close, Tim smiles.

“The heart works in mysterious ways,” He tells them, hand twined with Damian's, wrists pressed together where their missing pulse should be.


End file.
